Effect of Water and co-Solvents on the Synthesis of Conducting Polymers

It is widely known that the intrinsically conductive polymer (ICP) polypyrrole is soluble in organic solvents(OS) in its nonconducting base form. However a concentrated polypyrrole /OS solution (>5%) is unstable and rapidly forms gels at room temperatures. We have found that the solution stability of polypyrrole in water is greatly increased and that this solvent may be suitable for use as a spin bath for the wet spinning of polypyrrole films in the base form. We report in this paper some initial electrochemical and mechanical data on solutions of PPy using water solvent and acetonitrile as an OS. All examined PPy solutions showed a similar mechanical behavior in that the solutions became more shear dependent with increasing concentrations or increased aging time. The conductivity of PPy films was superior when water is used as the solvent.

Keywords:

Water solvent , Conductive polymer , Cyclic Voltammetry , Polypyrrple